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Rivolta Femminile, Carla Accardi, Marta Lonzi: Feminism, Art and Architecture in Mid-Twentieth-Century Italy

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Rivolta Femminile, Carla Accardi, Marta Lonzi: Feminism, Art and Architecture in Mid-Twentieth-Century Italy RIVOLTA FEMMINILE, CARLA ACCARDI, MARTA LONZI: FEMINISM, ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN MID-TWENTIETH-CENTURY ITALY A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY KÜBRA NESRİN ERDOĞAN IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE OCTOBER 2019 Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences Prof. Dr. Yaşar Kondakçı Director I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts. Prof. Dr. Cânâ Bilsel Head of Department This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts. Prof. Dr. Belgin Turan Özkaya Supervisor Examining Committee Members Assist. Prof. Dr. Esin Kömez Dağlıoğlu (METU, ARCH) Prof. Dr. Belgin Turan Özkaya (METU, AH) Assist. Prof. Dr. Giorgio Gasco (Bilkent Uni., ARCH) ii I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last name : Kübra Nesrin Erdoğan Signature : iii ABSTRACT RIVOLTA FEMMINILE, CARLA ACCARDI, MARTA LONZI: FEMINISM, ART, AND ARCHITECTURE IN MID-TWENTIETH-CENTURY ITALY ERDOĞAN, Kübra Nesrin M.A., Department of History of Architecture Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Belgin Turan Özkaya October 2019, 186 pages Since mid-twentieth-century Italy was undergoing a paradigm shift due to the larger industrialization and modernization processes which consequently had its reflections upon society in the form of intersecting political, social, and cultural movements. Accordingly, this shift triggered some critical attitudes towards conventional gender roles, requiring new definitions of women’s identity against the prevailing social norms. Within this context, this thesis focuses on Rivolta Femminile, one of the newly emerged feminist collectives of the 1970s that contributed to the Italian feminist discourse considerably, and examines the imprints of its underpinning concepts on the spatial and theoretical productions of two of its members: the artist Carla Accardi and the architect Marta Lonzi. Delving into the tensions emerged between feminism, art, and architecture, the habitable art environments of Carla Accardi charged with implications of alternative domesticity and Marta Lonzi’s criticism of ‘modern architects’ and architectural canons constitute the core of the study. Even though the analysis of the feminist iv positions of the cases with respect to their productions is the essential point of discussion, a general scenery of the Italian landscape of the 1960s and 1970s is also presented in order to locate the contributions of these two women within architectural history and within the general political and social climate of Italy during that period. Therefore, this thesis is a portrayal of the distinct influences of a particular feminist collective on the design processes and production of space and aims at restating the visibility of those spaces and processes together with their protagonists in historiography. Keywords: Rivolta Femminile, Carla Accardi, Marta Lonzi, Italian feminism, feminist art and architecture v ÖZ RIVOLTA FEMMINILE, CARLA ACCARDI, MARTA LONZI: YİRMİNCİ YÜZYIL ORTALARINDA İTALYA’DA FEMİNİZM, SANAT, VE MİMARLIK ERDOĞAN, Kübra Nesrin Yüksek Lisans, Mimarlık Tarihi Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Prof. Dr. Belgin Turan Özkaya Ekim 2019, 186 sayfa İtalya, yirminci yüzyılın ortalarından itibaren geniş çaplı endüstrileşme ve modernleşme süreçlerinin bir yansıması olarak birbirleriyle kesişen politik, sosyal ve kültürel hareketlerin sonucunda yeni bir döneme girmiş; bu süreçte alışılagelmiş cinsiyet rolleri eleştirilmiş, kadın kimliği egemen sosyal normlara karşı yeniden tanımlanmıştır. Bu tez, bu ortamda, 1970’lerde ortaya çıkan ve İtalyan feminist söylemine katkıda bulunmuş kolektiflerden biri olan Rivolta Femminile’nin, kendi üyesi olan sanatçı Carla Accardi ve mimar Marta Lonzi’nin mekânsal ve kuramsal çalışmaları üzerindeki etkisini inceliyor. Feminizm, sanat ve mimarlık arasındaki gerginliği derinlemesine araştıran çalışmanın merkezinde Carla Accardi’nin alternatif evsellik ve ev yaşamı düşüncelerini yansıtan sanat ürünü mekânları ve Marta Lonzi’nin modern mimarlara ve mimari kanonlara yönelik eleştirisi yer alıyor. Her ne kadar tartışmanın odak noktasını, Accardi ve Lonzi’nin feminist duruşlarının üretimleriyle ilişkili çözümlenmesi oluşturuyor olsa da mimarlık tarihine ve genel olarak İtalya’nın sosyal ve politik hayatına yaptıkları vi katkıları netleştirmek amacıyla 1960 ve 1970’lerin İtalya’sının genel bir manzarası da çizilmekte. Böylelikle, bu çalışma önemli bir feminist kolektifin tasarım süreçlerine ve mekân üretimine yönelik bıraktığı belirgin etkiyi, bu mekânları, süreçleri ve aktörleri tarih yazımında görünür hale getirmeyi hedefliyor. Anahtar Kelimeler: Rivolta Femminile, Carla Accardi, Marta Lonzi, İtalyan feminizmi, feminist sanat ve mimarlık vii To every marginalized person in historiography, viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Belgin Turan Özkaya for her inspirational critiques and academic guidance, yet, above all, for her kindest sympathy and encouragements throughout this study. It is always a great pleasure to learn from her. I wish to thank the jury members Assist. Prof. Dr. Esin Kömez and Assist. Prof. Dr. Giorgio Gasco for their insightful comments including suggestions for further studies in the future. I owe special thanks to Raffaella Poletti, the archivist of Marta Lonzi Archive in Elvira Badaracco Foundation in Milan, for kindly sharing the materials when the archive was still in progress; and, Caterina Franchini for helping me access important sites of knowledge during my time in Politecnico di Torino. I am thankful to my beloved friends Nihal Evirgen, Burcu Eryılmaz, Berçem Kaya, Deniz Beyaz, Ayça Orhon and Pınar Yalçınkaya simply for being my family in Ankara; Elif Bilge and Zeynep Gür for their empathy and support in my times of frustration. I am also indebted to my dear friend Eyüp Özkan for all the colors he added to my life and for always believing in me even when I was in doubt. I owe my deepest gratitude to my parents, Hatice and Muammer Erdoğan, for their endless love and support in every aspect of my life. Last but not least, many thanks to my favorite person on earth, my sister, Esra Erdoğan. Nothing feels worthy unless I share the joy with her. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS PLAGIARISM........................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. iv ÖZ .............................................................................................................................. vi DEDICATION ........................................................................................................ viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................... ix TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................... x LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................. xii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1 1.1.Some Reflections on the Recognition and Self-representation of Women architects in the 1960s and 1970s ............................................... 5 2. SETTING THE GENERAL ITALIAN LANDSCAPE IN THE 1960s AND 1970s .................................................................................................................. 13 2.1. The Political and Social Transformations ........................................... 13 2.2. The Protest Cycle ................................................................................ 16 2.2.1. The Student’s Movement and The Faculties of Architecture ... 17 2.2.2. From Faculties into Factories: Workers’ Movement and the Alliance with Students ................................................................................. 21 2.3. Italian Feminisms ................................................................................ 24 2.3.1. The ‘Presence’ of the First Wave Italian Feminism .................. 26 2.3.2. The Context of the ‘New’ Italian Feminisms of the 1970s ....... 31 2.3.2.1. Feminist Manifestoes .................................................... 33 3. SETTING THE PARTICULARS ..................................................................... 39 3.1. AIDIA (The Association of Italian Women Engineers and Architects) .................................................................................................... 39 3.2. Rivolta Femminile ............................................................................... 50 3.2.1. The Notion of Autoscienza ........................................................ 54 x 3.2.2. Feminists’ Production and Appropriation of Space ........................... 56 4. AN ALTERNATIVE DOMESTICITY: CARLA ACCARDI’S HABITABLE ART ENVIRONMENTS............................................................ 64 4.1. Arte Povera and The Habitable Art Phenomenon................................
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